Things went a little haywire.

See who can guess whats going on here.

Just listened to an episode of the Boomtown Podcast where the author was talking about a re-work rig doing something similar. Scary sh!t. Hope no one got hurt.

That podcast is a good listen if you have any interest in the history and legacy of the Permian or our state’s o&g heritage in general.

Looks like an "oops".

some one got ran off the job?

Oh Yea!

Have no idea, but it looks scary. 'They call that a "workover rig" (minus the bird's nest)?

I don't think that's supposed to look like that.

Wireline fishing job? had to bring W/O rig out to fish?

Actually that's a swabbing unit we're fishing with, the slickline was what caused the problem. Seems he had his paraffin cutting tool down about 4000 ft when his helper decided to shut the master valve cutting the line. We still haven't figured out what possessed him to do that, 4000 ft of line and tool went to the bottom. They went back in with a tool and caught the mess but it hung up at 500 ft and he broke his line. Went in with the swabbing unit and got one tool out but when we went back in and caught the second tool the well decided to come see us and had to shut it in again. I'll have a pulling unit on it Monday and pull tubing. They turned a simple paraffin cutting into an expensive work over.

I primarily work on the drilling side and know next to nothing about the production side so I don’t have a clue....

Bests guess is who was operating the rig wasn’t paying attention and could’ve gotten someone killed....

I hate working remedial work on work over rigs for that reason....

Been in a couple scary situations with those guys....

Glad no one was hurt, that is scary when that much energy is released when the cable snaps. Back in the mid 70's I worked at a machine shop building sand removal tooling. It was wireless and had a trigger on the nose that set the side plates when it hit bottom. On the return trip to the catcher you could tell if it didn't set up right as it was coming to fast and you could hear it click at every joint. I saw what was left of a catcher that got hit by one that ran away. Dangerous work the oil and gas field folks to so we can have the good live.

Sounds like a resume enhancer for the helper. Big oops for sure and a costly one.

Looks like somebody’s lucky to be alive!

Operator must have been star gazing.

It’s mind boggling how many times I’ve seen or heard of someone shutting a valve on wireline. It happens far more often than makes sense.

I know absolutely zero about what was going on here other than it had something to do with an oil well?
I would appreciate if someone would take a minute to explain what the goal was in this operation and what happened when the helper "[censored] the valve off"....I dont even know what the valve is lol.

we have a lot of oil wells in southern Kentucky but I've never been close to any of them so it's all outer space to me

Damn it, happens to us too, we are in a CO2 flood, next thing ya know [censored] blowing everywhere, sad thing about it is that slick line will lie to you and say they can do any job available

I was about to say that exact thing!!!

It happens not only on older small producers. Cutting wireline has happens with some regularity even during frac operations with some seriously expensive spread costs.

I am in the WH/Frac Tree/Flowback/Prd Tree tree side of the business. For one of my major customers in North America our field ops sheared wireline during a frac with a hydraulic valve, co. rep had told our tech to close the incorrect valve. Literally within 2 weeks on another job we had a tech close a manual valve and shear wirleine on a subsequent well the customer was fracking while they were POOH. Definitely had some new procedures and people let go over it. Never a dull moment.

We had nearly the same scenario when I worked for a wellhead outfit. Our hand shut the valve the company man told him to. Blew up some iron while they were pumping. A few weeks later, that same company man cut wireline while operating the accumulator himself.

Slickline is basically just a solid length of wire that can run tools in the well. Oil wells, over time, can accumulate paraffin in the tubing and that slows production. They were cutting the paraffin out. Shutting a valve on Slickline will cut it and leave it in the well. That is a picture of what they fished out of the well with a swab unit. Fishing is just the process of retrieving lost items in a well.

thanks sneaky, I find this stuff pretty interesting and have wondered how this stuff works

It is interesting. It’s funny how advanced so many things have become in the oilfield, yet how much we rely on some of the oldest and simplest tools and techniques to get things done.

I was pumping a liner 10-12 years ago down near Crockett, and one of the hands closed the blinds, it was nasty to say the least.

I do like remedial and acid work though, its like a box of chocolates, you just never know what you get until you pump into it.

Here is the extent of what I know about that...……"not good at all."

Glad I didn't do it.

backlash, somebody needs to put down the baitcaster and go back to the snoopy rod

Does any/all of the equipment yal send down have cameras on it?

Wireline can run a camera, since it’s electric. That usually means something ain’t right, and the usual logging tools or impression block isn’t telling them exactly what they want to know.

Hell of a backlash fished up right there. Hopefully was able to pull the tubing with no downhole pump damage when tools were dropped.

What is the purpose of the valve that caused the issue? Isn't there a way to lockout/tagout while the slickline is down the hole? Or, is it an emergency "stop" for whatever other bad thing might happen? bear64 and I are in the same boat, facinated but know nothing but what I read here.

That valve shuts the well in. It could have been LOTO, with a chain, since those valves are typically gate valves. That’s not typically done. You want access to that valve for purposes of well control. In that situation, it would be used as a last resort. It’s understood (or supposed to be) that you don’t operate those valves unless you’re 100% sure of what you’re doing, especially when working on the well. People are human, though.

This has nothing to do with the OP story, other than mistakes can happen, and be costly.

While in high school and college I worked for a rental/service company in SE OK. We rented all kinds of tools including blowout preventers (BOP) and part of my job was to service the tools when they came off of rental. When we serviced the BOPs, we cleaned, replaced the dogs, and tested to about 4000 psi. To test, we bolted to a base, then placed a section of pipe in the dogs with a bull plug on the down end and cranked the dogs down tight. We then filled the BOP with water and hooked to an air compressor to build to the test psi. One day another guy was testing a BOP, but placed the bull plug end of the pipe UP - meaning as the pressure built, it built inside of the pipe. As it approached max psi, the dogs failed and the pipe became a missile. It launched up through the roof of the building, across the parking lot, and landed on a parked car. Everyone in the shop thought there had been a gas explosion. The new guy was unhurt, but soaking wet and very confused. He was let go that same day - he could've easily killed himself of someone walking across the parking lot.

When I started reading that, I knew exactly where it was going. We had a guy do the same thing with wireline rams. It just left a much smaller hole in our roof than those pipe rams.